Need help

10-07-2010, 04:06 PM

My 3 year old has been taking her feces and smearing it everywhere (she has even put it in her mouth. It has happened 5 days in a row now. The first three day I explained how it was not Ok, and that she would need to tell us when she had "poop" in her diaper. She continued to do it, and yesterday I put all her toys in another room for a few hours. I do not like punishing..... and I typically let allow her to do quite a bit, but we draw the line at things that are harmful to herself or others. I was hoping she would not do it today and she did. I lost it, I did not hit her or anything but I yelled pretty loud. I feel absolutely horrible, but I was just so upset. I apologized to her, but I feel guilty. I do not know what else to do so I am hoping I could get some advice. I also worry about her speech. She comprehends about 60 or 70 percent of what we are saying and that worries me also. I think this makes communicating with her very difficult. Please, any advice would be appreciated.

It's understandable that you were upset. Can you identify why she's doing this? Is she in diapers? Is this happening when she uses the potty? What's going on around that time?

As for the speech, have you talked with your pediatrician? You say you worry about her speech but then you say her comprehension concerns you. Receptive language and expressive language are two different things. How do you know she's comprehending 60-70 percent? Have you had her assessed? Do you think she's frustrated in her inability to communicate and is then acting out by smearing her poop around?

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This sounds like a really hard thing to deal with! I have no idea what I would do in this situation. I recently saw a post from another mama who had experienced something similar and I was amazed at how she was able to keep her cool.

Do you have any idea why she may be doing it? If it's just because she wants to explore, can you try some alternative like letting her get really messy outside in some mud? Or could she be stressed about something?

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No fun! I think I would probably try to have as little reaction as possible. It may be the fact that you get frantic about it that makes it so appealing. I would say something like "we don't play with poop, it's not clean, now let's go clean up.... I have an idea, if you want to play with something mushy we could do play dough or play in the mud etc...." I think that sometimes our little ones are just fascinated at how their actions can cause us to react... or maybe they are just fascinated with poop I hope this is a fast phase for you but in the meantime, I would try to make your reaction as calm/quiet and confident as you can.